Transaction Flow dashlet

AppMon 2017 May
In the Cockpit, expand your System Profile and double-click Transaction Flow.

AppMon 2018 April and later
In the sidebar, click Dashlets > Transaction Flow.

An overview of your environment appears. This includes the Agent Groups from which you receive events.

Transaction Flow dashlet

The Transaction Flow dashlet supports different visualization modes that provide different views and detail levels. The Topology View mode is the default mode. Use this to analyze the basic operation. Use the Transaction Response Time view to analyze transactions.

The dashlet header contains information about the current settings and data:

Number and percent of failed transactions in relation to the total number of transactions.

Inter Tier Time/Transaction

Average latency time for transactions in milliseconds and total transaction execution time percentage.

The diagram consists of the following components:

One or more entry points (generic, web request, synthetic request, browser, or user)

Collapsible grouping frames for defined Agent Groups

One or more database pools

Inter-tier connectors or communication channels

Blue: Incoming

Green: Outgoing calls of currently select Agents

Purple: A link shared between two selected Agents on multi-select

AppMon groups Agents by Agent Group. The System Profile specifies the Agent Group. If your system landscape consists of many Agents, the collapsed view only shows the Agent Groups, and not each single Agent. To switch between the collapsed and expanded views, use the context menu. To access the context menu, double-click an Agent Group or click the symbol in the upper right corner of the Agent Group. If an Agent Group contains only one Agent, the group is always expanded and you cannot collapse it. In order to prevent the Transaction Flow from exploding an upper limit of 100 Agents per Agent Group was introduced. Agent Groups that contain more than 100 Agents cannot be expanded.

The Transaction Flow diagram layout is organized around Agent Groups and not, necessarily, physical hosts. You can use a single Agent Group, but it is recommended that you configure your System Profiles with multiple Agent Groups that fit your landscape. This helps with management and configuration changes and creates meaningful diagrams.

View modes

Currently the Transaction Flow visualization supports the following view modes:

Topology view

Use the Topology view for a general overview of your application and the flow of transactions. It shows the rate of calls and the protocols between tiers, as well as the inter-tier time.

This view identifies which application components communicate with each other, how many calls they make, the call rate, protocols, and the latency impact. This information is based on all the PurePaths in the current live-session, per default, and unfiltered.

The diagram shows the call rate on communication channels between Agents and the inter-tier latency time, if you enable it in the header.

Hover over the component and use the shortcut menu for detailed information on each component in the diagram. The tool tips contain a subset of the details available in the shortcut menu and provide quick access to the most relevant data. Component values are bold face in the Transaction Flow visualization.

Transaction response time view

Use the Transaction Response Time view to analyze individual transaction types. In magnified view, it shows the response time per transaction, protocol contribution, and detailed call statistics per transaction or passing transaction.

This view analyzes single transactions and their flow through the application landscape. Use it to trace a single type of transaction and identify which components contribute to the execution of that transaction type. This information helps to identify bottlenecks and resources used. You must zoom in on a flow to see transaction response times in Transaction response time view.

The diagram shows the number of transactions that pass through a communication channel, and the average calls per transaction on that channel. It also shows the inter-tier latency time, if you enable this.

Zooming

You can use zoom in reduced and normal view mode using the mouse wheel and the dashlet actions.

Differences in zooming view modes

Topic

Normal view mode

Reduced view mode

Contents

Hotspot

The Normal view mode visualizes hotspots using different font sizes to the response time contribution.

The low-resolution mode visualizes hotspots using different font sizes to the Agent Group name.

Visualized Data

Shows detailed information about Agent, Agent Groups, and their connection.

Does not show detailed information about the Agent, the Agent Group, and their connection.

Health visualization

Every Agent and Agent Group has its own health status. AppMon visualizes this with a segmented health circle that contains the following:

Process

Host and transaction health

Three states:

Red: The host or process is unhealthy, or transactions are failing.

Green: Everything is okay.

Grey: No transactions are available, or the host or process is unknown.

Values visible in Transaction Flow

This section discusses the values in the Transaction Flow. You can't see all the detail values in both the Topology and Transaction Response Time views. To view full details, right-click the connection, and select Details from the context menu. The values in the Agent or communication link that is currently selected are in bold face.

The following terms are found throughout the Transaction Response Time view:

Per Transaction: The value calculated is based on the overall transactions to which the dashlet filter applies. The dashlet header displays the number of total transactions.

Per Passing Transaction: The value calculated is based on the transactions between two Agents or Agent Groups.

Inter-tier communication channels

Inter-tier communication is the communication between two Agents, typically the different tiers of your application. Inter-tier time is the time (network latency, non-instrumented tiers, and queuing) spent between two Agents: One Agent's last PurePath measure point and another Agent's first measure point.

Call Details

Description

Passing Transactions

Number and percentage of transactions that passed through the communication channel in relation to all transactions.

Calls per Passing Transaction

Average number of calls invoked per passing transaction.

Inter-Tier Response Time Contribution

Inter-tier time impact on the overall transaction response time during the specified time frame.

Calls

Average number of calls per passing transaction, per overall transaction.

Response Time

Average response time of a communication channel's end point per call, per passing transaction, per overall transaction.

Inter-Tier Time

Average inter-tier time per call, per passing transaction, per overall transaction.

Calls

Total number of calls and call per minute, sent over a communication channel, and the percentage of different protocol contributions.

Agent Groups

Agent Groups involved in this communication.

Agents

Agents involved in this communication.

Entry communication channels

Entry communication channels typically mark a PurePath entry point.

Call Details

Description

Passing Transactions/min

Number of transactions invoked on this entry point per minute during the specified time frame.

Transaction Response Time

Average transaction response time or average server response time, if browser diagnostics is not used.

Passing Transactions

Total number of invoked transactions during the specified time frame or in the live session.

Number of transactions that pass into the database and the percentage in relation to all transactions.

Executions per Passing Transaction

Average number of executions per transactions for this database.

Executions

Number of executed database queries.

Response Time

Average time for connection acquisition and query execution.

Acquisition Time

Time for connection acquisition

Executions

Total amount of executions and the percentage of different protocol contributions.

Instances

Database name / SID and database host

Type

Database vendor / type

Agent Groups

Agent Groups calling the database

Agents

Agents calling the database

Agents

Each connected Agent that contributes data to the current session, time frame, or filter, has an icon that contains the Agent name, host name, and technology. AppMon groups Agents by grouping frames, according to the System Profile configuration. The grouping frames details are similar to the Agent, but show aggregated values.

Agent Details

Description

Execution Time / Transaction

Average execution time spent on this Agent or Agent Group per overall transaction.

Transaction Response Time Contribution

Percentage of time this Agent contributes to the overall average response time.

Failed Transactions

Number of failed transactions and the percentage in relation to the total number of transactions.

Passing Transactions

Number of transactions that passed this Agent.

Incoming Calls

The average number of calls per passing transaction and per overall transaction.

Node Response Time

Average response time of this Agent per call, per passing transaction, and per overall transaction.

Execution Time

Average execution time on this Agent per call, per passing transaction, and per overall transaction.

Incoming Calls

The total amount of calls made on this Agent and the percentage of different protocol contributions.

Platform

Technology on which the Agent runs.

Agent

Full Agent name (all Agents in this group on Agent Group details).

Agent Group

Agent Group to which the Agent belongs (name of Agent Group on Agent Group details).

Time Details

Response Time

Overview of the min, max, average, sum, and percentage of the response time for all calls of an Agent or Agent Group.

Execution Time

Overview of the min, max, average, sum, and percentage of the execution time for all calls of an Agent or Agent Group.

Execution CPU Time

Overview of the min, max, average, sum, and percentage of the CPU (execution) time for all calls of an Agent or Agent Group.

Database Time

Overview of the min, max, average, sum, and percentage for the database time of all calls of an Agent or Agent Group.

Database

Executed database statements display in one single aggregated view using the database component. This view shows the number of executed database calls and their execution time.

Database Details

Description

Response Time / Transaction

Average time per transaction for connection acquisition and query execution.

Transaction Response Time Contribution

Percentage of time this database contributes to the overall average response time.

Failed Transactions

Number of failed transactions and their percentage in relation to the total number of transactions.

Passing Transactions

Number of transactions that passed this Agent.

Executions

Number of executed database queries.

Database Response Time

Average time of connection acquisition and query execution.

Database Time

Time of query execution.

Acquisition Time

Time of connection acquisition.

Executions

Number of database queries executed.

Instance

Database name or SID and database host.

Type

Database vendor or type.

Time Details

Database Time

Overview of the min, max, average, and sum of database execution time.

Acquisition Time

Overview of the min, max, average, and sum of database connection acquisition time.

Third party calls

In installations that use User Experience Monitoring, AppMon visualizes user actions with third party content using Third Party nodes. The third party calls value is the average response time per call. AppMon does not apply these times to overall response time calculation, because most of the third party calls run asynchronously.

External services

AppMon detects and visualizes server side transactions, like external service calls, in the Transaction Flow dashlet. Amazon Web services, Microsoft Azure Cloud hosted services and other non-instrumented processes are visualized to the right of the Transaction Flow. External messaging calls are part of the external call detection and are also visualized.

AppMon groups external service calls by top-level domain names (or cloud service types, if applicable) and groups of such services are named according to their hosts. External service call detection is performed by the .NET and Java Web Request Sensors.

Work with Transaction Flow

Hover over Agents, Agent Groups, or communication links, to see drilldowns for root cause analysis.

The example below displays an architectural problem: A call directly from the front end to the database. Use the drilldown from the communication link between the front end and database to go to the two affected transactions and analyze them.

The Transaction Flow legend shows that 12 failed transactions and highlights the Agents and nodes in red. The Agent's details show the number of failed transactions and the direct drilldown to errors on this node. The Errors dashlet shows errors and drilldowns for analysis.

Drill down to monitor the health of your applications or to show which database calls are made from a selected node.